Argentina v Iceland was one of the first matches of the 2018 World Cup to sell out apparently, with the two countries sharing a history when it comes to knocking England out of major tournaments.

Eight of the 11 Iceland players to eliminate England from Euro 2016 started this one, having also frustrated Ronaldo two summers ago. “Can they do the same to Messi on their World Cup debut?” asked ITV’s Sam Matterface, prophetically.

When he also revealed one of the Iceland players had been chasing his two-year-old daughter around the hotel lobby, one wondered if they could maintain their energy levels, especially as they were “expecting to be without the ball a lot”.

Messi changed the ball before taking an early free-kick, then saw his whipped delivery deflected wide of the far post.

A reminder: a few weeks after Ronaldo played in the Euro 2004 final, Iceland GK Hannes made his debut in the final game of the Icelandic 3rd tier, made a mistake that cost his team the title. A few weeks later he almost tore his finger off whilst filming a pop video. Almost quit.

Only six minutes had been played when the first mention of a ‘Viking beard’ was made in commentary, with Bjarnason sending a great chance wide for his side moments later.

“The ball is spinning to be fair to him,” said Glenn Hoddle, who knew how to hit a spinning ball, to be fair.

Matterface told us Javier Mascherano was not a popular inclusion in the Argentine squad back home, yet the half-time stats showed him with a perfect 70/70 pass completion rate.

The ‘thunderclap’ had its first outing on the quarter-hour mark – no vuvuzelas this time thankfully – and we were told the population of Buenos Aires was 45 times that of the whole of Iceland, whose manager Heimar Hallgrimsson earns more from his job as a dentist than he does as national team coach.

Eight members of the Iceland team that beat England at the Euro 2016 finals started their World Cup match against Argentina in Russia (pic Nick Potts/PA)

Messi found space to fire in a shot that was punched clear by Hannes Halldorsson, before we learned Argentina had not missed a World Cup since 1970, used three managers in qualifying for Russia and would not have been there “if it hadn’t been for you know who”.

They took the lead on 19 minutes when Sergio Aguero smashed home a shot on the turn, for his first goal at his third World Cup, but Iceland were back on terms just three minutes later as Alfred Finnbogason slotted home in a goalmouth scramble.

“He speaks six languages,” said Matterface of the goalscorer, who went on to explain the demographics of Iceland thus.

“Because of its size, everyone knows someone who knows someone who went to school with someone who knows one of the players. You can see the unity in the celebrations,” he said.

Iceland fans show their support in the stands (pic Jonathan Brady/PA)

“I don’t want to say they’re direct, but they’ve completed 22 passes out of 42 attempts in 29 minutes,” he added of Iceland’s efforts to that point.

Hoddle replied: “There’s no rights and wrongs in the way we play football.”

Discuss.

A great slo-mo replay then showed the referee tripping one of the Iceland players off the ball, which had Hoddle chucking off mic. “Can you book yourself?” he asked.